Donnelly managed to hold on to his seat – after seeing a nearly $500,000 windfall of support come in from the National Association of Realtors,

In Illinois’ 14th District, Rep. Bill Foster was facing a little less than $100,000 in C ads until American Future Fund dropped nearly $200,000 of them. The Fund is an Iowa based group that also doesn’t disclose its donors but acknowledges it was launched with seed money from an Iowa ethanol and energy executive. Foster lost.

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In Pennsylvania, the Republican groups called in multiple players to bombard a half-dozen House Democrats, including some facing significantly underfunded Republican opponents. In the quest to oust Democrat Chris Carney, 60 Plus and the Chamber combined to spend about $1 million. The 60 Plus Association teamed up with the Center for Individual Freedom, another group that doesn’t disclose donors, to shell incumbent Democrat Rep. Paul Kanjorski with more than $600,000 worth of ads.

The results: Carney and Kanjorski went down in defeat.

Although the Republicans worked in tandem, the loosely knit coalition never set restrictions on the role that each would play, which sometimes led to conservative groups working against each other’s interests.

In Maryland, for instance, the Chamber spent more than $400,000 trying to protect conservative Democrat Rep. Frank Kratovil, a Blue Dog ally, only to see its efforts blunted by nearly $200,000 in attacks financed by Concerned Taxpayers of America. Kratovil lost.

Similar dynamics were on display in South Carolina, where the Chamber stayed out of the re-election race of House Budget Chairman Rep. John Spratt while the conservative Club for Growth, an anti-earmarks group funded by individuals and corporations, pounded Spratt with more than $400,000 in attack ads and messages.

Spratt didn’t survive.

In Iowa, Cody Brown, the campaign manager for Republican House candidate Ben Lange, said his boss tapped into his $400,000 campaign account to run just two campaign ads for about three weeks in the entire campaign. Both were positive biographical ads about Lange’s small town, populist roots.

Meanwhile, his Democratic target, Rep. Bruce Braley, a trial lawyer, faced $250,000 of negative ads from the Chamber and nearly $2 million in attack ads paid for by American Future Fund, the Iowa group.

Braley made a big issue of the outsiders and managed to hang on.

Democrats get involved

In the summer, Democrats realized what the Republicans were up to, and many tried to sound the alarm. Labor unions, environmental groups, women’s groups and a small set of wealthy donors were called into action in August as House party leaders realized what was being amassed against them.

“If there is a flood coming, you need to strategically place sandbags,” said Cristina Uribe, a key strategist with America’s Families First Action Fund, a hastily created group backed by labor and liberal donors that planned to spend more than $10 million trying to protect the House majority.

"Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The Republican victories in Congress mean U.S. companies from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Wellpoint Inc. may be able to weaken or block what they consider President Barack Obama’s anti-business policies on health care, the environment, taxes and financial reform."

The winners of the mid-term elections will likely be big business and corporate interests as touted by the Bloomberg News article. Efforts to make corporations pay their fair share, or to penalize them for shipping jobs overseas will be stymied. Efforts on behalf of consumers and the environment will be slowed. Recall that besides the Heathcare Reform Bill that benefits consumers over the insurance companies, who are quick to drop or deny coverage, other reforms like making sure that college loans are made more affordable with the removal of predatory lenders; new consumer protection for credit card holders; a consumer protection advisory board; easier for women to challenge pay discrimination; tax incentives to hire unemployed workers; further regulation (oversight) on Wall St.; to reining the massive waste, fraud, and abuse of the 435-plus war profiteers will all be reduced. The GOP opposes campaign finance reform because they clearly have an advantage as seen by the Mid-term results and the GOP-packed SCOTUS which allowed the flood of special interest and corporate interests to assure that our elections are the best that money can buy.

Listen up you dope JEANNE CUMMINGS, youv'e gotta be about as dumb as a rock if you think the democRATS and the George Soros spending machine & the Unions are immune! Crawl back into your dark musty hole you came out of! Your crap don't wash...YOU STINK!

Our elections join the other "best that money can buy institutions" like education, heathcare, and our legal system.

If that were true, the Dems would still have control of the House and would have actually increased their seats. Dems (Dem insitutions and Unions) did dramatically outspend the Republicans (Repub insitutions and outside groups) in the House race.

Final tally spent by outside groups: $245 million for Republicans to $191 million for Democrats.

The coordinated attacks of the shadow govt. led by Rove,Gillespi and their 24/7 news channel (Fox)proved you can fool most opf the people all of the time.

Didn't Republicans spend about $670 million (republican groups and independent orgs) while the Dems spend about $850 million (democract groups and independent orgs)? Do unions fall into "outside groups" or are they considered part of liberal PACs?

The writer is so off base. it makes it sound like this money "alone" made the wins. These wins were made a while ago when the WH overreached. It is not worth reading tripe like this.

It's JournoLista shock. Who knew the party of GOP, stupid, fat , old bozos could beat the Liberals at their own game and still not spend as much money as them. It's hilarious. Go play some more golf and reflect Obama. Sort of like Tiger. Let the grownups run Congress now.